If you look back at ‘Free Agent Frenzy 2013,’ you’ll note that most of the headlines were dominated by names like David Clarkson and Jarome Iginla. One signing that flew under the radar that summer, and into the season, was the Tampa Bay Lightning’s deal with forward Valtteri Filppula.
When our good friend ‘Artyukhin76’ asked me to take a look at the Filppula signing one year after the fact, I knew where I was going to go with the blog. Simply put – Filppula was fantastic in Lightning blue. In fact, he was probably better than fantastic. He surpassed every expectation this blogger and most fans had for him and more.
Before sitting down to write, I had to ponder a couple questions. How could I accurately show that? How could I back those claims up? Thankfully it proved to be fairly simple.
Filppula signed a five-year, $25-million contract with the Bolts last summer. At the time, plenty of people thought it was an overpayment. They hadn’t seen enough from Filppula, who was stuck behind Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk in Detroit. It didn’t take the Finnish playmaker long to prove all his doubters wrong.
In 75 games with the Bolts in 2013-14, Filppula set a career high in goals with 25 and added 33 assists for 58 points. He was a fixture on the team’s second line. While it’s true that he did shoot at a 19.1% clip, which is historically high, the fact remains that he was a very, very effective player all season long.
Beyond the goals and assists, it’s absolutely worth mentioning that Filppula was a possession monster for the Lightning. It’s impossible to quantify just how much of an impact he had on the team’s ability to transform from a cellar-dwelling possession club to a top-ten possession club, but there’s little doubt that he had an impact.
For evidence, consider that, among Tampa players who suited up in more than 41 games this year, Filppula ranked fifth in relative Corsi. When he was out on the ice, he was driving the bus. It’s really that simple. Even more impressive is the fact that he did this with relatively worse zone start numbers than his teammates, and while facing some of the toughest competition.
We can visualize that ‘driving the bus’ comment by looking at Filppula’s ‘with or without you’ numbers.
Note: Players selected were Filppula’s three most frequent on-ice partners plus Callahan and Palat, his line-mates for stretches after the trade deadline.
What you should take away from that chart is this: Filppula made most of the players he played with better. With the exception of Ryan Callahan, the ‘together’ Corsi percentage is higher than the ‘player apart’ Corsi percentage. That’s really good. As stated, Filppula was a driver.
I’m not sure that anyone could have predicted that Filppula would have such a positive impact on the Lightning in just his first year with the team. Maybe Steve Yzerman did. And maybe that’s why Steve Yzerman didn’t hesitate to hand out a $25-million contract to a player who tallied just 17 points in his UFA year.
While Tampa fans should probably expect Filppula’s shooting percentage to regress a little bit, there’s no reason to expect that he will stop being an effective member of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
I think it’s important to give credit where credit is due. Steve Yzerman deserves a lot of credit for inking Filppula to the deal he did. And Filppula deserves a whole lot of credit for delivering.
As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter. 
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